Paul Anderson is very confident Town can finish the current campaign in the play-offs, taking him a giant step closer to fulfilling his ambition to play in the Premier League.
After victories over rivals Brighton and Derby in their last two outings Mick McCarthy’s men have another great opportunity to strengthen their position when they take on Anderson’s former club Nottingham Forest at Portman Road tomorrow.
With eight games remaining, eighth-placed Town are two points adrift of a coveted top six place and faltering Forest, only above them on goal difference, would be another significant scalp.
Billy Davies having been sacked following last weekend’s 5-0 thrashing at arch-rivals Derby, they are minus a manager and without a win in their last nine games, a run that started with an FA Cup defeat at Sheffield United and continued with the capture of a mere three points from a possible 24 in the league.
Anderson, 25, said: "I’m very confident of our chances and I think we’ve been quietly confident from day one that we’d have half a sniff of the play-offs.
"There are a lot of good teams in the league but we always believed that the work rate and the togetherness that we have were big strengths.
"We’re now two points off the play-offs and we’re in such a good position to be like Blackpool, who nobody expected to do it but went on to have a chance in the Premier League.
"It didn’t quite work out for them up there but they had a good shot at it and I don’t see why we can’t be one of those teams. I think we’ve got a lot more ability than that Blackpool team had.”
Anderson was a trainee at Hull before joining Liverpool at the age of 17 but during more than three years at Anfield he never made a Premier League appearance.
He added: "I was on the bench a couple of times for Champions League games but I never got anywhere near the Premier League. That is something every young lad dreams of and it is still my target. Hopefully next season it will happen with Ipswich.”